


The Hour Of My Death

by goblindaughter



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Other, Trigger warning for suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goblindaughter/pseuds/goblindaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The zombie apocalypse comes to S.H.I.E.L.D. Maria Hill is the last one left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hour Of My Death

It's a damn good thing about the blast doors, Agent Maria Hill thinks as she runs. Or all of what's left of SHIELD would be on her tail--it's too soon to be conclusive, but she's noted distinct pack behavior. And flocking. They come to the sound of others of their kind hunting.  
Really, she thinks as she rounds a corner, she should stop lying to herself. "They" are zombies. Walkers. The living dead. Straight out of a Romero movie and into the compound. She wants to blame the lab boys, so she goes ahead and does it. Sure, there's a possibility of sabotage, but it's nice to have names to curse. Monday mornings are bad enough already. A zombie apocalypse is the icing on the goddamn cake.  
Maria rounds the corner and finds herself face to face with what used to be Agent Barton.  
Fuck a duck. It's gotten to the Avengers, too.  
They look at each other, and it's awful, because he still looks like Clint except for the way his eyes are all pupil and the ragged bite mark on his left wrist. Then he lunges, and Maria yells and strikes out with her baton. It catches him--it--in the side of the head. Blood spatters, soaks her left sleeve. She hits him--hits it--again. It snarls. Maria dances back and swings again, aiming to snap the neck this time.  
She does.  
And looks down at her arm.  
"Oh." Her voice is flat, and very small. She doesn't know how the virus spreads. It can't just be by bite, that would be horribly inefficient--and there's absolutely no reason she can't get it from a zombie bleeding on her.  
No time to worry about being a walking hot zone now. She needs to get to Director Fury immediately.  
There's just the labyrinth of tunnels and a possible horde of walking corpses hungry for her flesh in between there and here.  
"No big deal," Maria tells herself, and steps over the body of Agent Barton.

The halls in this sector must have been nearly empty when the virus struck. She runs into lots of corpses--most of them agents who got this far, realized they'd been bit, and swallowed a bullet--but only three live zombies. Maria knows she's probably infected by now a dozen times over. All the blood has got to be carrying whatever it is that kills you and picks you up again to go chew on your friends.  
But she's not feeling it yet, and even if she was, she couldn't give up. She's an agent of SHIELD. She's _trained_ not to give up. Coulson didn't. She won't until the virus finishes hip-checking her mind out of the way. And if she's lucky, that won't be ever.  
Maria doesn't run this time.  
She needs her strength. 

What she finds outside of Director Fury's office isn't pretty. Tony Stark is sprawled on the floor with half his head missing. Director Fury himself is stumbling down the hall away from her, and the fact he's doing so while there's a hole through his chest is indication that he's not alive anymore. She doesn't make a sound, just kneels by what was formerly one of the foremost technical geniuses in the nation and a man who was almost her friend, picks up the arm, aims.  
Splays the fingers.  
The arc reactor still works, and Director Fury's body burns.  
The smoke is not responsible for the tears in her eyes.

The inside of the office is as pristine as ever. The oak desk, the wall safes, the chicken-wire-reenforced window, the bank of monitors...it looks as though he just stepped out. And that just makes everything worse. Maria can feel the pent-up wave of shock and terror and rage and grief about to crash down--she's been feeling it since she had to shoot Reznor, who will never play Galaga on the sly again--and she knows that sooner or later, she will have to stop holding it back and let it come, or it will break over her at the worst time and get her killed.  
She locks the door. It's steel covered by wood, and thicker around than Thor's waist. Nothing will get in that she doesn't want to. Then Maria sits down at Director Fury's desk, in Director Fury's chair, and cries until her throat is raw.  
When she's done, she wipes her eyes and takes several deep, heaving breaths. She knows the code to the bigger wall safe, which has just about everything in it--food, camping equipment, water, enough heavy weaponry to outfit a S.W.A.T. team. The Director was prepared for everything. (The small safe is full of documents too sensitive for anyone but him to see. She doesn't think they'll be needed any longer.) She opens that and gets herself a bottle of water. Then she goes to the bathroom--the architect thought of everything, this place can be lived in, if you don't care about comfort too much--and splashes water on her face. She can't waste too much like this, she knows. Or at least not for much longer. So she takes a shower, too.  
Then Agent Maria Hill sits down at the desk, and takes out a report template and a pen. (The pen trembles, because her fingers are trembling, and it's not because she's tired or scared. Oh, god.) Slowly and deliberately, she begins to fill in the form. 

\------

Case number, 33042. Date, October 17, 2014. Reporting agent, Maria Sandoval Hill, ID number 0057BR23, clearance level Red-Beta. Incident type, Apocalypse Scenario Zed. Incident description, a contagion entered the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, causing the incident. Multiple agents, multiple members of the Avengers Initiative, and Director Fury are deceased. The facility is overrun with zombies. Cranial and spinal trauma as well as immolation have proved effective. No confirmed vectorrrrr

(Her hand is shaking harder now, and she's just written the same letter multiple times. It can be nothing else. Nothing else. The blood was infected and it passed the infection on to her. Dios te salve, Maria, llenas eres de gracia)

Blood is a confirmed vector. Biting is most likely a vector. Hazmat suits advised. 

(El Señor es contigo, bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de ru vientre, Jesus.)

I have become infected via blood. It does have to enter any orifice, as far as I am aware. Skin contact has, in my case, been more than sufficient. If someone is sent in after quarantine protocol has ended, they are to be careful with the remains.

(She will die after this, she will. She will make sure of it. Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores.)

The dead do not appear to be very smart. The younger they are, the faster they are, but they're still just as stupid. They are vicious and, from my limited experience, I've seen they focus only on eating. If in a large enough group, however, they will begin to display cooperative behaviors. They are also seemingly attracted to the sound of other dead.

The building has sealed itself as part of quarantine protocol. Do not unseal it. I repeat: do not unseal it it it it it it

(She shakes herself. _You're still human, you're still Maria, and Maria is going to finish the damn report and fax it. Now write!_ she thinks viciously.)

Do not unseal it. Please be advised that this may have spread elsewhere, as the incubation period is unknown. I recommend appointing Iza Okorafor as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Expect no further communications from this venue.

\------

Maria gets up, puts the paper in the fax machine. Enters the addresses. The White House, the Pentagon, the three other major S.H.I.E.L.D bases scattered across the country. Then she takes the gun Director Fury keeps--kept--in his desk, goes into the bathroom, and locks the door behind her.

She sits with her back against the wall and puts the barrel of the gun in her mouth. It's hard and cold and intrusive, and it tastes awful. She's shaking so hard it keeps clacking against her teeth. But she won't have to worry about any of these things for long.

Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte, Amen

 _La hora de mi muerte,_ Agent Maria Sandoval Hill thinks. She pulls the trigger. 

The shot is so loud. 

But oh, it doesn't hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I just killed off That Man Is Playing Galaga. (His first name isn't Trent, though.) In case it wasn't clear or anything. This was massively inspired by Survival Tips for Shield Recruits, which is exactly what it says on the tin. They're hilarious and I suggest you go check them out at shieldrecruitsurvivaltips.tumblr.com. (The tips in question are 72 and 118. It ended up being a lot darker than those suggest. I might write something more light-hearted about 72 later.)  
> If I've made an error in the Spanish (I pulled the prayer off Google and applied my own meager skills to change the last line to "my death" instead of "our death"), please drop me a line in a review and I'll do my best to fix it!


End file.
